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Who doesn’t love Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music? Both are family favorites. We are often asked about the books we read, movies we watch, the curriculum we use, and general questions about our big family household. So, we decided we would share with readers some of our favorite things.

We’ll share the curriculum we use for school and books we use for teaching the faith, homemaking tips, and some of our favorite movies, books, artwork and recipes. We hope you will get involved and share in the comments what you love too.

Some of the topics we will discuss:

Educating Children

We homeschool our children but that doesn’t mean we believe it is the only way to educate. Parents have different reasons why they choose the type of education they do for their children. What we absolutely believe, and what the Church teaches, is that parents are the primary and most important teachers for their children. We will share what we do in our own home-school and what we use to teach the faith at home, but it can easily be applied to any education situation. We will also share our own favorite books and resources for learning the faith and general education for adults because the number one way to make sure your child is well educated is to educate yourself and live the faith. No amount of books or stories can replace parents who love, live, and share their faith with their children.

The Books on Our Shelves

The one thing I am asked about more than anything is what books do we read at home. We do not buy a lot of “religious” curriculum. Instead we seek out literature and curriculum that teaches Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Math that has a child counting nuns isn’t necessary and can burn a child out. We will just as quickly use, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, or the Harry Potter series to teach about the Christian life as we will a good catechism and the Bible. We do also buy Christian books, from all genres, on different subjects, for different ages, and will share those as well.

God resting after creation – Christ depicted as the creator of the world, Byzantine mosaic in Monreale, Sicily.

Sacramental World View

It is important to explain that our goal is to help our children develop a sacramental world view as described here:

“Everything that lives and breathes is sacred and beautiful in the eyes of God. The whole world is a sacrament. The entire created cosmos is a burning bush of God’s uncreated energies. And humankind stands as a priest before the altar of creation, as microcosm and mediator. Such is the true nature of things; or, as an Orthodox hymn describes it, ‘the truth of things,’ if only we have the eyes of faith to see it.” – His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew

Having this world view impacts every part of our life which of course includes the books, movies, etc. that we use. We will continue to discuss this topic in upcoming blog posts.

Homemaking and General Family Topics

We don’t feel like experts–at all. We learn and struggle everyday with running a large household, trying to raise a faithful family, becoming better stewards, and becoming better spouses and parents. All while living in this crazy upside down world that is intolerant of Christians and families like ours.

We know how lonely and difficult struggling to raise a Christian family can be. In the past, when families were closer and the family unit wasn’t broken down like it is now, so many basics were taken for granted. You learned from your elders and the younger people cared for them. Someone was usually around to teach you to cook, sew, change the oil, give advice about the kids. Grandparents helped pass on the faith. Sadly, this is often not the case anymore and can be rare even.

We cannot fix all these things with some blog posts and we do not have all the answers, but we can share some of what we have learned and can learn from our readers too. We truly believe faithful Christian families need to support one another and reach out to each other. We can do that a bit here.